Top 30 (more or less) tunes of 2015

I totally ran out of time for a year-end music post in 2014 (the last one was published in 2013), but they are just too much fun to put together, so here’s the 2015 edition. The cutoff is 50 or more plays (as in previous years, the source here is my iTunes). These are songs that I loved this year; though some were released before 2015, but almost all of these reached triple-digit plays. I don’t do a lot of description of these, they are in no particular order, and linking instead of embedding is not indicative of preference (it just means I couldn’t get it to embed). I feel like if you actually take a chance by clicking and listening to the songs, you’ll hear why they made the list. There’s a WTF factor to some of my choices, so go ahead…read on and judge away after the jump. You can also check out the 2012 list.

“The Theory of Relativity” – Stars — Okay, so it’s three years old. And I used to hate Stars because “everyone” said the singer sounds like Morrissey on “Take Me To The Riot.” He doesn’t. No one does. However, I’ve since discovered (courtesy of CBC Radio3) that several tracks off their 2012 album The North are actually pretty good, and this is the one I played the most.

1989 – Taylor Swift
It wouldn’t surprise me if Ms. Swift went back to country at some point. Her songs still have that “3 minute movie” quality I so enjoy in classic country.
Update – Jan. 07 2015: Exhibit A

Also she’s got a director who apparently attended the Duran Duran School for ’80s-Style Mini-Movie Video Clips. Russell Mulcahy would approve.